“I’m not in the mood to be the audience tonight for your usual lingerie fashion show. We all know you’re beautiful, Astrid. I’ll join you in a few seconds,” he said more quietly after a pause, as if he’d regretted his sharp interruption and weary sarcasm.
Astrid didn’t respond. Was she miffed? If she was, she didn’t voice it. Something hinted to Emma that restraint wasn’t typical for her. Vanni was supremely confident, but Astrid seemed almost as used to getting what she wanted. Her behavior wasn’t the norm, or at least not completely so. She was holding her temper.
For him.
The sound of a door opening breached her awareness. So . . . the large office was attached to his bedroom suite? Emma leaned as close to the door as she could. What is he doing out there? The sooner he joined his bedmate and they got down to it, she’d be able to escape this ludicrous situation. She didn’t think she’d even be able to confess this fiasco to Amanda or Colin, it was so humiliating, and she told her sister and her boyfriend almost everything.
Yet she’d never had something so incendiary to tell.
A moment later, she heard a slight squeak on the wood floor and footsteps. His stride was long. Fluid. Unhurried.
“Come over here. I’m going to bind you onto the sliding track, then use the flogger on you,” he said.
Emma’s mouth dropped open.
“Anything you say.” Astrid’s reply was only diffident on the surface. Beneath it, there was a dripping greed and hunger that shocked Emma to the core.
Oh no. What kind of twisted, kinky scenario was this? And why didn’t that degenerate Vanni shut the goddamn bedroom door?
Yet she didn’t want him to. And that made this whole situation even more incendiary than she could measure.
She heard something that sounded like heavy metal being moved and arranged on the floor. Emma’s muscles grew so tight, they began to ache dully. Her hand screamed in acute pain, however, protesting from holding the catch on the door so tautly. She longed to let go. Curiosity was a sharp internal prod. Did she dare to peek out and ascertain the couple’s location in the bedroom? They could be yards away by now.
The sound of leather against flesh was the next thing that penetrated Emma’s tense misery. Oh Jesus. They were close. Much closer than she’d imagined. It was almost as if they’d barely moved away from the door. Emma bit her lip in rising agony. Another cracking sound. In the pause that followed, she heard Astrid moan.
“Oh, that feels so good. Yes, give it to me.”
“Quiet,” he demanded. Again, the sharp sound of a lash striking flesh. Another. Astrid cried out sharply.
Emma couldn’t take this anymore. She knew about S and M. Almost everybody did in this day and age. It’d become almost a cliché in modern society. References to it usually earned a smirk or eye roll from Emma.
But sitting here, experiencing the sounds of a woman willingly being flogged with the intent of sexual arousal, hearing the taut crack of leather against bare skin and Astrid’s moans, feeling the inexplicable tension and electricity in the air . . .
. . . none of it felt remotely funny.
What was worse and far more humiliating? A thick, warm sensation had settled in her sex. What was wrong with her? Colin and she had shared a satisfactory sex life for the past two years, but intimacy with Colin had never inspired this intense, undeniable, uncomfortable arousal.
It was humiliating, what he was doing to her. Wasn’t it? Given Astrid’s obvious excitement, it was a little hard to label it.
She began to ease the door open, telling herself that she needed to look if she wanted to escape. She paused when the lashing sounds ceased as well.
“Oh God, Vanni. C’est si bon,” Astrid said shakily. Emma swallowed thickly. He was touching her. Pleasuring her, somehow. It certainly sounded that way.
“I told you to stay quiet,” he said, his patient tone in these circumstances confusing Emma.
Again, the crisp smack. The sound was starting to tear at her, leaving a resulting throb in her flesh. It was unbearable. At all costs, she needed to get out of here. Holding her breath and sending up a prayer, she eased open the cupboard door a tiny fraction of an inch. Cool air brushed against her hot face.
She paused, frozen for a moment in horror. She could see them. Or a slice of them, anyway. Not really them. The woman. She was right there, maybe fifteen feet away. Emma moved her head, holding her breath, trying to get a more complete picture through the cracked armoire door. Astrid was naked and on her hands and knees, kneeling and bound with black rope to a sort of T-bar. The bar rose from a metal rack that sat on the carpet. Astrid’s hair
was long and dark—nearly black, lustrous and curled in loose waves. It her position, it hung over her face. Her naked body was voluptuous, the sun-kissed, golden skin gleaming and flawless in the soft lamplight. She clearly sunbathed topless. Her bottom was pale next to her gilded skin, but there was no evidence of a tan line around her breasts. A dozen or so black leather tails landed on a curved buttock, making Emma jump. Astrid cried out sharply. It all looked so alien . . . so deliberate. Astrid’s almost palpable arousal confused Emma even further.
Curiosity nudged her. She craned to see the man holding the flogger. He must have been kneeling behind the bound woman, but the door to the bedroom suite blocked her view of him. The flogger fell again, lashing voluptuous flesh. This time, Emma made out the masculine hand and forearm holding the leather handle so surely. The leather tails landed again, the sharp sound twining with Astrid’s loud moan. Emma didn’t think it was a harsh lashing, although Astrid’s bottom was taking on a rosy hue.
Vanni paused, resting the hand that held the flogger on the top of a buttock. Emma saw his other hand moving, rubbing the other cheek, as if soothing the sting. She bit her lip hard. The vision had sent a sharp spike of forbidden arousal through her, shocking her. The large, masculine hand moved, caressing hips and ribs. She saw Astrid visibly tremble in pleasure beneath his touch. His hand caressed the pinkened buttocks again and then lowered between Astrid’s legs. Astrid made a muffled sound in her throat. She opened her mouth.
“Control yourself,” he warned quietly. “You know it pleases me more than your hysterics.”
Astrid bit off a moan. Burning to know what Astrid was experiencing in these bizarre circumstances, Emma moved her view in the small opening of the door. Astrid had turned her head, causing her hair to spill from her face. Emma had never seen a more exquisite woman aside from her sister, Amanda. But it wasn’t just her physical beauty that struck Emma. Her face radiated pure ecstasy. What in the world was Vanni doing to her to evoke that much pleasure? Her eyes were clamped shut. Her dark pink lips opened as if in slow motion. She began to keen, the piercing sound startling Emma. Her hips began to jerk back and forth in a frantic rhythm, her generous breasts bouncing at the motion.